


And It’s All Over For The Unknown Soldier

by theirrationalfan



Series: The Unknown Soldier [3]
Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, CT-7567 | Rex Has PTSD, Character Study, Introspection, Loneliness, Post-Episode: s02e04 Relics of the Old Republic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-11
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-18 11:56:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29982501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theirrationalfan/pseuds/theirrationalfan
Summary: Rex is fine. He's always fine.He's fine.He's fine.Is he?
Series: The Unknown Soldier [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2202360
Kudos: 5





	And It’s All Over For The Unknown Soldier

Rex isn’t an ordinary man. Engineered to kill, born to die. That’d be the tag line. Grand Army of the Republic- engineered to kill, born to die. Trained to do each in the finest military traditions of the galaxy, with as little fuss as a Verpine firing. He’s endured everything the galaxy’s thrown at him- sniper rounds on Saleucami, torture on Zygerria, even mind control in hyperspace.

So why can’t he endure this?

He’s thought that Cut Lawquane had a good deal- out of the army, out of danger, in the company of his family, but now he doesn’t know how he could have borne it.

He’s been lonely before- Coruscant, a warehouse on level 1325, an unknown moon, by the wreckage of a shattered Venator, even places as mundane as ARC training SERE exercises on Korasa. But not like this. He’s not the last clone alive, he knows this- Wolffe and Gregor will be alive on Seelos for years to come- not many, but more than him.

So why can’t he endure this?

He looks down at his hands, and he’s not wearing his gauntlets, and they’re not full gauntlets now, he cut them into fingerless gloves a year into Seelos, the same time he stopped shaving every day, and that’s not _right_ , his training sergeant would have slapped him seven ways to Heptaday on Kamino, and that’s not a thing any more, none of the Grand Army is, not the training sergeants and not even the aiwa bait cloner motherfuckers on Kamino, and-.

Focus. Focus. Breathe. In. Out. In. Hold. Out, long. Again. He’s tough. He’s efficient. He’s always walked out the other side. He’s survived everything the galaxy’s thrown at him, pummelling it down into the dust or the slime or the sand or the rock of a thousand different worlds or evacuating when he couldn’t do that or just _enduring_ when he couldn’t do that.

So why can’t he endure this?

He needs to focus. He needs to- first things first, are his men in danger? Are they rearming? Are they cleaning gear? Are they eating? Are they sleeping? He looks up sharply.

This isn’t right. This isn’t- it isn’t- it’s not the Resolute. It’s not the AT-TE on Seelos. It smells like them though, but it’s-not.

Fuck. Fuck. Careful, now. He- he has things to do. He guides his hands to the locker, and carefully takes out his helmet. Then he washes it, removes the visor, wipes that, replaces it, and reboots the HUD. Then he cleans his armour, wipes it down, and removes his boots as well, and polishes them too, then he washes his blacks, and showers, and comes back, and puts his blacks on, and- he sits on his bunk.

And he sits on his bunk, and.

And he sits on his bunk.

He looks at his hands again, and at his blasters laid out on the bunk. Fuck. He grabs one, and. He sits on his bunk. There’s nothing for him to do. Ahsoka had to leave, not a day after he’d arrived. Jedi business. He can’t tell if she was teasing him. Fuck. It feels- wrong. It feels wrong. Where’s his objective? Where’s his general? He can’t do this. With Wolffe and Gregor there wasn’t a general but there was work, there was survival, he could- survive. Everything in him feels. Wrong. Where’s the war? _What the hell else was he supposed to be good for? Stupid, thinking he could ever have been anything other than a soldier. Stupid. What the hell else was he ever good at, what the hell else was he made for?_ He takes a deep breath. He’s fine. He’s fine. He can be fine if he needs to, he’s been fine before when he needed to- when he was six and taking command of his cadet squad when their sergeant was killed in their first LFX, and the long-necks put him on command track, when he was crumbling in grief over the bodies of a thousand thousand brothers.

So why can’t he be fine now?

The briefing room door slides open and a Phoenix Command aide stands in the door. “Commander Rex? Commander Sato would like to talk with you, if you have the time.”

Rex stands up, blaster still grasped lightly between his fingertips. Maybe he can endure even being unable to endure.

**Author's Note:**

> I wasn't sure about the title for this; I was afraid it'd reinforce an impression Rex was on the edge of suicide. I might've written that, I'm not sure, but I don't believe Rex would do that, he's too attached to his friends and family and comrades, for me at least.  
> This is the last part of the series, I don't think there's another point in his life that there's enough potential in. Sure he has cataclysmically, catastrophically, impossibly shite days, but none of them have been quite as terrible as O66 or whatever. I'm quite attached to the head canon that clones are *very* aggressively social and don't cope well with isolation if they're the standard model. Alpha and Null ARCs, sure, ok, they're bushwhacking weirdo loner survivalist nutters, but CTs Cannot be alone.  
> Credit to @CollisionTheory 's meritous service in the discord server for the "engineered to kill, born to die" tagline, would that not be the horniest opening to a shitty TCW show ever? you get like the B99 opening with snapshots of the team and their personalities just after a cold open, then that gets slapped across the screen, then squashed under a pint glass being slammed down on the bar again.
> 
> And credit to @behradtarazi for inspiring me with her Tumblr fics about Steve being really, truly, fucked up (https://alexeishostakoff.tumblr.com/post/190500335036/i-dont-want-to-kill-anyone-steve-had-said-once) and possibly going insane in the ice/isolation (https://alexeishostakoff.tumblr.com/post/188196674886/steve-has-never-been-good-with-silence-hes), I get chills every time I read those


End file.
